Practically every business knows they need to keep their website fresh and up-to-date if they want to please both search engines and visitors. Search engines and visitors alike become bored with old, outdated websites that fail to offer anything new. Broken links, last year's news and dated content cripple your website, and attracting traffic becomes a thing of the past.

Just as your car needs a tune up now and then to run at its best, your website needs regular maintenance, too. Regular maintenance is what enables your site to perform at peak function today and stay profitable long term. Depending on your business, your website and your visitors, this could involve a variety of procedures.

If you rely on your business to attract visitors who then contact you to purchase services, your website maintenance schedule is likely to involve:

* Adding or updating content at least bi-weekly * Deleting or archiving old content * Adding new services or special offers * Updating, repairing or removing broken links * Verifying and ensuring website security * Site traffic analysis and reporting * SEM activities, such as submitting your site to search engines

Websites that are strictly designed for e-commerce have an additional set of procedures that should be included in their site's regular maintenance schedule:

* Product updates, including graphics, text and files * Conversion analysis * Feature addition to improve usability * Customer support * Database management * Enhanced security monitoring

Depending on your business and your website maintenance needs, you can either learn to perform maintenance yourself or handle it in-house, or you can hire a third party to manage it for you.

Whether your maintenance needs are large or small, it's often more efficient and economical to hire someone to manage website maintenance for you. Out-sourcing website maintenance guarantees it will get done regardless of how busy you may be. It also helps ensure maintenance is done correctly. You won't have to train yourself or an employee on how to maintain your website if you outsource, and an expert will be able to spot and correct issues before they develop into problems.

Regular website maintenance doesn't have to be a complex, expensive undertaking, but it is crucial if you want to protect and make the most of your investment in your website long term. Developing and implementing a maintenance schedule will enable you keep your website alive and thriving long term.

About the author

MediaContour.com is a full service web design studio located in Los Angeles, California. Media Contour offers solutions in web design in LA, web programming, branding, marketing services, print and graphic design.